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How one Species Can Change So Many Things

Started by Solitary, August 05, 2014, 12:03:19 AM

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Solitary

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

hrdlr110

I nearly got through the day without learning something new! Thanks, that was interesting.
Q for theists; how can there be freewill and miracles? And, how can prayer exist in an environment as regimented as "gods plan"?

"I'm a polyatheist, there are many gods I don't believe in." - Dan Fouts

SGOS

The reintroduction of wolves is very controversial and unreasonably emotional in the Western US.  Yes wolves kill things, but they create a natural balance.  For some reason, this bothers some humans who believe that balance can only be achieved through the intervention of humans. 

Back in the 70s, when over fishing, logging, and mining began to decimate the salmon populations in Washington State, some fishermen (not all of them by any means) took to carrying rifles on board their boats, and would kill seals on the assumption that seals were eating too much of the salmon.  I used to wonder why salmon were in such phenomenal abundance before fishermen started killing seals.  It seems humans are not very good at understanding the big picture and don't really get cause and effect.  Sure we see causes.  We see effects.  But we often don't put the right cause with the appropriate effect. As a result, we invent solutions that don't work, and often make things worse.

Gawdzilla Sama

Idaho recently allowed the killing of wolves because they were threatening the elk herds, a source of income for the state, "recreational killing of harmless animal", and the local farmers and ranchers are complaining that there are too damn many elk and the state should do something.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Mermaid

We are just one species and have managed to change basically everything. That is the nature of the natural world and something people do not generally understand. Everything we (or other species) do has an effect. Usually small, sometimes infinitesimal, but sometimes large.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

aitm

A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Mermaid on August 05, 2014, 06:08:32 PM
We are just one species and have managed to change basically everything. That is the nature of the natural world and something people do not generally understand. Everything we (or other species) do has an effect. Usually small, sometimes infinitesimal, but sometimes large.
The last species to cause this much change was the cyanobacteria, the wee beasties that sucked most of the iron out of the oceans and allowed carbon-based life to thrive.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers